The Pretty Lies, The Ugly Truth
by Kayson3259
Summary: Mona-centric one-shot exploring what the years of Alison DiLaurentis's cruel torture did to the Liars and Mona. Based off of Marina and the Diamonds' "Teen Idle."


_**Author's Note: **I loved the song "Teen Idle" by Marina and the Diamonds so much that I had to write another one-shot for it! This one is centered around Mona and in memory of Mona. I hope you enjoy it! _

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><p><strong>Age 13<strong>

My mom always said I was a cute girl.

_Cute_.

Cute wasn't gorgeous. Cute wasn't beautiful. Cute wasn't even pretty. It was just…_cute_. Nobody cared about cute. Cats were cute. The difference was that people wanted to adopt a cute little cat. Maybe a person would adopt a cute little girl. But cute got old really quick.

In elementary school, and even in sixth grade, everyone was sort of everybody else's friend. Nobody was really a bully. Nobody said anything mean.

And then thirteen came around. Suddenly, everyone had someone to impress. Especially Alison DiLaurentis.

I was never really _best friends _with Alison DiLaurentis; she was just a girl who had been in my classes since about the third grade. Everyone liked her, but as I said, everyone liked all of their classmates.

But suddenly, Alison was the '_it' _girl. Everyone wanted to be her friend. All of the boys had crushes on her. For some reason, she picked four random girls to be her best friends: Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, Hanna Marin, and Aria Montgomery. I didn't really have any history with any of them, aside from Hanna. Hanna and I had been in the same class since kindergarten and we were best friends until the end of elementary school. I don't know what changed between the two of us, but we just…drifted.

I always wondered what Alison wanted to do with any of them. Any single person in our class would want to be her best friend. What did she want from the four of them? Spencer was a nerd that boys in our class made fun of; Hanna was overweight and an easy target of everyone in the class; Aria was quirky and…well, _strange. _The most normal of the four was Emily, and still, she was quiet as a mouse.

Their friendship never really affected me. I never had a problem with the four girls. The one I had a problem with was Alison. She always made fun at me. First, it was for my glasses—which I never did understand, since Spencer wore similar ones. Then, it was because I didn't have very many friends. That never really bothered me since school was a place where you were supposed to learn, not make friends. I understood that for a long time. But then, she started picking on me because I was too skinny. And later, because I didn't wear the same clothes she did or even because my hair was _ugly_.

I remember coming home one day to ask my mom if I could bleach my hair platinum blonde, just to try and appease her. She asked if I was crazy. In retrospect, it was a pretty ridiculous request, but I just felt so inferior and unworthy at the moment, all because of the color of my hair.

Alison's teasing wasn't very bad that first year, but I was still extremely relieved when summer rolled around and I could finally be free of her snide remarks. I hadn't realized just how bad it was going to get.

**Age 14**

I walked into eighth grade with my head held high, seemingly unaffected by Alison's cattiness in the seventh grade. After all, it was just that: _cattiness_. It wasn't bullying. It was just her being an immature little girl. I knew it. My mom also said I was smart, which I took as a compliment. I also believed it, considering Andrew, Spencer, and I all seemed to take turns with getting the best grades in the class.

For the first few months of the eighth grade, everything seemed simple again, just like it was in the sixth grade. I thought the worst was over and it was just a little phase. I could focus on finally being a teenager. I never really felt like a teenager until I turned fourteen, anyway.

But then, it just got worse. Alison's snide remarks turned in to cruel digs. Her once sharp words turned into insults laced with blades.

I had my first suicidal thought when I was fourteen. She always said I was worthless anyway; nobody would care if I was gone.

Even Hanna, who I had once considered my best friend, looked on. Sometimes, she even _laughed_, albeit an uneasy laugh, but she still went along with it. She certainly wouldn't miss me if I disappeared, either. Hell, Alison wouldn't even feel _guilty _for being the reason for my disappearance.

I stayed locked inside my room for most of that year. I just wanted to stay inside all day; the smiling sun wasn't even appealing at that point, since every day—for me, at least—it rained. I wanted everyone and everything to go away because I was completely done with life at that point. I was still pretty innocent, so I had no thirst, at that point, for revenge. Any and all pain I had was a direct reflection on myself.

All her 'skinny' comments began to get to me, to the point where I ate too much and subsequently threw up, so all the eating was in vain anyway.

I begged my mother to get me contacts because I didn't want to be so ugly with my glasses anymore. She had given in, but that was in vain, too. Whenever I tried to put the contacts in, I just couldn't get myself to keep my open long enough to get them in. The doctor told me that it was probably something having to do with the muscles around my eye. In simpler words, it meant that I probably couldn't wear contacts until I was older and the muscles weren't so…sensitive.

In my opinion, all of it just meant that Alison got more free passes to make fun of me about things that I couldn't really change.

I had really wanted to kill myself that year. The only thing that kept me from doing so was the fact that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't have the bile or the gall for suicide; I was still too innocent to fathom killing anything, even if that thing I was planning on killing was myself.

One day, I found that Alison had begun to spread her bitter hatred towards other people. First, it was Lucas Gottesman. I knew Lucas, but I wasn't really friends with him. He seemed kind of smart, too, but paled in comparison to me, Spencer, and Andrew. Then, she started acting horrible towards Toby Cavanaugh, whose mother died fairly recently. Out of all the things Alison could've done that were horrible and mean, that probably took the cake.

And her best friends didn't care.

As the end of the year approached, I felt my bitterness, anger, and disdain for the five of them increase tenfold. I was bitter, for possibly the first time in my life.

**Age 15**

I started high school with this inevitable feeling of dread. I knew whatever Alison had in store for me was going to be bad. But I never thought it would be _that _bad.

Now, not only was my weight mocked, along with my glasses and my clothes, but now I had earned a nickname.

Loser Mona.

It made me so upset to hear her refer to me as that. Later, I heard others call me that, too. Within some short period of time, Loser Mona became my name, replacing Mona Vanderwaal.

One day, my mom noticed just how upset and lonely I was. She realized how dark of a place I was and she brought me to Church with her one day. At first, it gave me this gross, unclean feeling, like I didn't belong there. But within time, I came to realize that perhaps it was one of the best things she could've ever done to me.

"Dear Lord, forgive us for our sins."

"Dear Father, forgive us for our sins."

"Dear God, forgive me for my sins."

I became a more spiritual person that year. I felt like I finally had someone on my side. Even though I thought that everything was my fault anyway, at least I knew that there was someone who was going to forgive me because God forgave everyone for his sins.

I saw now that Alison DiLaurentis was not God; she was the most unforgiving soul I'd ever met.

I'd learned church hymns and the psalms and prayed every night before bed. It was healing, to say the very least.

Still, I felt like I was missing something. Even though my soul had been accounted for, I was missing out on everything. I just sat in my room all alone, reading (and later re-reading) _L'Attrape-coeurs, Les Misérables, _and _Madame Bovary. _I wanted to finally fit in and be accepted. I wanted to have some sort of life like everyone else at school. I didn't just want to quiver at the sight of Alison DiLaurentis.

That was my mindset when school let out at the end of June. I was going to try and get more and more confidence over the summer so that when September came, I wouldn't have to quiver at the sight of Alison. Loser Mona would be no more.

The next year would be better.

**Age 16**

Alison DiLaurentis was gone.

That was the first thing I heard when I set foot into Rosewood High for sophomore year.

The first thing I saw was Emily Fields and Aria Montgomery at Aria's locker, clearing everything out. Apparently, Aria was leaving for Iceland for a year. I assumed that it was because her parents wanted to pull her out of Rosewood due to the circumstances, but I wasn't positive.

Emily looked the most shaken by what happened. Anyone could see that she was the most emotionally attached to Alison. How, I'll never really know; Emily was one of the sweetest people I'd met (even though I was fairly sure she didn't like me; any enemy of Alison's seemed to be an enemy of Emily's, too).

On my way to American Literature, I spotted Spencer. She looked just as composed as ever. She didn't even seem to be affected by Alison's disappearance. I didn't know if that was just a façade or if she really didn't care that her former best friend was missing. Then again, I saw Spencer audition for _Macbeth_; she's a very convincing actress, kind of like her older sister, Melissa. She was alone, but then again, good grades were the most important aspect of high school; a social life was just a perk and if she ended up not having one, it was no big deal.

Hanna had changed the most over the summer. She lost so much weight, she looked almost unrecognizable. And even though she was now skinny, she still acted like she had those extra thirty pounds, from the way she walked to the way she dressed.

Maybe that was my perfect opportunity. I could swoop right in and get her back. I could have a best friend again.

Two months later, in mid-November, I found Hanna sitting outside of Lucky Leon's. She looked so sad as she stared at the poster of Alison on the store window.

I don't want to say that I was sad that Alison was gone—because in truth, I wasn't—but I didn't want anything to have happened to her. I didn't want her _dead_.

I don't remember exactly which words were exchanged, but a month later, I had my best friend back. Little did I know, Hanna was like my reflection; Alison had been just as ruthless and awful to her as she had been to me, but…even worse. Alison threw little underhanded digs at her, and while her snide remarks to me were obvious and I couldn't stand her, Hanna still saw Alison as her friend. She was still loyal and admiring.

Thinking back about it, I wish I had more gall and bile to take down Alison DiLaurentis, if not for me, then for Hanna. I wish I hadn't been so clean and passive.

All the little stories Hanna told me about Alison made me get angry. For the first time, I felt spiteful because Alison wronged my friend, my best friend.

Hanna acted like she had been getting better. But I could see she hadn't. She buried all her sadness and loneliness in shoes or sunglasses or boys. I could see she still wanted a friendship with Aria, Emily, Spencer, and, most of all, Alison. I couldn't tell if I was jealous, jilted, upset, or all of the above.

I thought I was past all of those dark thoughts. But truth be told, I wasn't. However, instead of being innocent and self-shaming, I was out for revenge. I felt like that one angel that turned into a demon. I came to hate the names Aria, Emily, Spencer, and Alison. Even though Hanna eventually stopped saying those names, my hatred for them didn't diminish in the slightest.

I plastered on my fake white smile. I was fake and loved, just like I wanted to be for the last few years. I was pretty and popular. I had a boyfriend. I lost my virginity to him. I don't even remember his name, but it doesn't matter. I hate that I lost my virginity to him. Add it onto the list of things I hate about myself. At least before, I wasn't that girl who cared about sex and boyfriends and drinking. Now I was. When I said that I wanted to be a normal teenage girl, I didn't say I wanted to be another s_tupid _teenage girl.

I realized, as the time for communions came around (which Hanna and I noted by the amount of girls getting their nails painted clear and toes painted bright, weird colors like blue and orange), that I was so far from who I used to be a year ago. I felt sort of like the antichrist, with my drinking, sex, stealing…I probably broke about four or five of the first Ten Commandments. I was no longer that girl that parents were proud their children were friends of. I wasn't the poster child for student president (so Spencer and Andrew could fight it out amongst themselves). I was none of that. I was just another bad kid.

The only thing I could do was try to right some wrongs. The first thing I could think of was that I needed to get back on top of everything. No more drinking, no more boys. I had to try and get rid of my competition.

The competition to be the class president. The only person I'd have to worry about for that would be Spencer Hastings. Andrew was smart, but Spencer was cunning and clever, qualities which Andrew lacked.

The competition to be Hanna's best friend. I wanted nothing more than to be her best friend. The only things standing in the way…Aria, Emily, Spencer, and Alison.

Now how to get to Spencer? How did I make Hanna forget about her former best friends?

I had to take Spencer down. I had to take all of the girls down. I had to make sure that Alison, wherever she was, _never _came back to Rosewood.

But I'd need help.

**Age 17**

Over the summer, I'd gotten a group of people together who hated Alison like I did: Paige McCullers, Lucas Gottesman, a few others whose names escaped me, and even _Toby Cavanaugh_. The last really shocked me. I never knew him to be a spiteful, vengeful person and I _never _thought he'd agree to it. He never fought Ali back on anything. But for some reason, he wanted in on it all.

I didn't tell them exactly what I was planning, but they knew my endgame: get revenge on all of the girls for the things they'd done to me and to _us_.

I truly believed all the girls deserved what they were going to get. After all, witnessing bullying (and that's exactly what Alison did to all of us: she _bullied _us) and not saying anything made you a bully too.

So I guess you could call me Karma.

At one point, I guess I wanted to just float by in high school and blend in, but now, I wanted to do something. I wanted to be the teen idol. I wanted to be the losers' and the nobodies' messiah. I wanted to make up for all the things Alison DiLaurentis had done to them, and to me.

I was going to save them. I thought it would give me eternal admiration. I really thought that everyone would love me and I would have it all: brains, beauty, and a heart.

But then, even _Hanna _ditched me. Hanna. Hanna, who I had reinvented and made into the person she now was. Hanna, who I had saved from oblivion. Hanna, who was my best friend.

Hanna, who was my _only _friend.

This didn't make sense. Was this what adolescence was? Friends turning their backs on one another and ditching each other? Being foolish and frivolous and image obsessed?

I really thought that it would never happen to me and Hanna. So much for that dream. I guess that was just my innocence (and ignorance) speaking.

And that was how Hanna became a target, too. Lucas wanted to protect her—I knew he had a cute little crush on her—but I warned him that it couldn't get in the way of exacting revenge. And then Toby went rogue, too. He got with Spencer to get closer to the enemy, but ended up _actually falling _for her. He left the group. We didn't really need him, anyway. He was just an adjunct helper.

I don't know if Toby ended up running to tell Spencer about us after he left, but somehow, Spencer figured it all out. Truth be told, I'd take her on the team any day over Toby. She was clever. She was smart. She could easily outsmart any of the other girls. But she wasn't so smart that she'd outsmart me.

My school year ended in Radley that year. The school year melted slowly into the summer and the amount of sunshine eventually began to dwindle each day, but who was counting?

I wasn't crazy.

**Age 18**

When you're in someplace like Radley, you learn to forget. You forget what day of the week it is or what month it is. I didn't even remember when my own birthday was. My mom had to come in and visit me.

I got some visits from Hanna, though. I never figured out why. Out of everyone, she had the most reason to hate me.

In retrospect, I see that I was rather irrational with thinking that she was ditching me. She was just spending time with old friends. Thinking she'd ever abandon me was the biggest mistake I ever made. She was the admiring, loyal one, after all.

In the time I spent at Radley, I found out—via Lucas, Toby, and Paige—that Alison was still alive and kicking it. I didn't know where she was. I didn't know how they even knew. Paige came and told me first and I couldn't believe her; ever since Paige started falling for Emily (damn those liars and their pink, kissable lips), she was untrustworthy. I didn't even know how much I trusted her in the first place. All I knew was that she hated Alison just like I did. Then, Toby came to tell me. Even though I knew that he wasn't really on the same page as me and wasn't particularly fond of me (because of Spencer and her stupid, kissable lips), there was one thing he wasn't and that was a liar. What would he even have to gain by lying to me about that? And then, Lucas came. Lucas told me, and since Lucas and I had the most history, I believed him.

I saw that those girls were never the enemy; they were just as scared of Alison as the rest of us were. They were sort of victims like the rest of us. But we broke free of those chains; they were still attached at the hip, should Ali ever come back.

I knew what we had to do. We had to protect them.

I wasted too much time and too much of my life in high school torturing the four of them when they didn't even deserve it. That was the ugly truth. Anyone could tell you that I was mentally unstable and not in the right state of mind, but I knew what I did.

Alison came back and for once, the girls seemed to be on my side. I didn't want to be their friends—not by any stretch—but I was being chosen instead of _Alison_, the girl who ruined my teenage years with her petty lies. Everyone always chose Alison over me before. But now, they at least saw what a bitch she really was.

And then I figured it out.

This whole mystery with everything that happened in Rosewood in the past two or three years was like a gigantic puzzle. I finally had the final missing piece.

Alison DiLaurentis was A. And I could prove it.

This was the opportunity for redemption that I had been waiting for for so long.

And then she showed up. Alison's puppet. She was wearing that horrible blonde wig and had a murderous gleam in her eyes.

I knew I was going to die. The only thing I could think of was how I was going to die _alone_. My funeral would consist of just my family; nobody would remember me. Maybe Alison _had _one. I was just Loser Mona and it was all I'd ever be.

No, that wasn't what I wanted.

"I know what you did to her!"

I couldn't find the words to answer, so I guess you're the only one who will ever hear it now.

I _didn't _conspire to kill Alison DiLaurentis. I _never _saw Alison the night that she died. The only thing I was guilty of was torturing four innocent people. I was guilty of dark thoughts. That was the ugly truth. I wasn't insane. I did it all in a sane mind. I had to be accountable for everything I'd done.

There was blood, and a lot of it. I put up a fight. I wanted to tell someone—anyone—just how sorry I truly was for all the bad things I did. I wanted to tell Spencer, Emily, Aria, and, most of all, Hanna just how sorry I was for ruining everything for them. If I never wanted revenge, they never would've had to deal with A. They wouldn't have PTSD. They wouldn't flinch in fear every time their phone rang.

It was all _my fault._

Little did I know, there's no possible way to make up for time lost, nor is there any way to make up for ruining someone's life. Time lost is…gone. It never comes back. Once something traumatic happens, you can never get your faith in humanity or your innocence back. It was gone forever. I wasted my youth, my innocence, and my life on frivolous, petty, stupid things. I ruined the lives of four people, or at least, dramatically altered them. What kind of person did that? Wasn't adolescence supposed to be beautiful and forgiving? Weren't teenagers supposed to be resilient? Why couldn't I be resilient and have forgiven them? That's what God would've wanted. So much for being pious and holy.

And I'd never get the chance to tell anyone that. I could only hope that my death brought some sort of relief for Spencer, Emily, Aria, and Hanna. But what I told Aria was the truth; once Alison was done with me, she'd move onto them. I guess my job was to protect them. I was supposed to be a buffer, and that was part of my way into getting their forgiveness. But I failed.

So much for being a teen idol.

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><p><em>I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please reviewfavourite/follow!_

_I'm wondering whether I should turn this into a one-shot collection consisting of 12 one-shots (one per month). If you'd like to see more one-shots like this about Mona, please let me know! **-Kayson**_


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